A Review of Walkability and Neighborhood Design

International Journal of Architecture and Urban Development, 2015

Pedestrian areas are a type of urban public space, nowadays because of the serious consequencesof car-dependency and ignoring pedestrian needs, a consensus on the importance of walking and the necessity forplanning for pedestrians movement has been formed among urban designers, planners and people. The concernsabout human health and movement in city create a new trend in contemporary urbanism, entitled “pedestrianizationmovement”. So far, walking in the streets has been defined under the influence of cars and they have always been givena priority over pedestrians. As a result, cars gradually conquer urban spaces, retreat pedestrians from their essentialrights to use public spaces. If it is accepted that the quality of urban public areas has a considerable influence oncitizens’ everyday social activities, this influence can be seen much greater in car free zones than anywhere else in thecity. The main attention of the present study is enhancing social interactions in urban spaces, so...

The presence of pedestrians in urban spaces creates social life and character. Today, the number of these pedestrians has decreased because most people do not use walkways. They instead use motorcars as an alternative to commute. This new trend have diminished walkway's activity and blighted urban life quality. Urban planners endeavor to find out the best way to eliminate roadway and convert to walkway, in order to recreate this livelihood to the city center. It becomes necessary to have this urban character that able to attract people to use pedestrian walkways as an indication to successful urban place. The case study of this paper is at Imam Bazaar located at Ahwaz city, Iran. The problem of this case study is that the number of pedestrians has decreased, and less people use the walkways. The use of pedestrian walkways is now limited to shopping activity and passerby. Based on attributive and field data, a survey is made on considering users' requirement and behavior to improve the quality of pedestrian walkways. The analysis relies on descriptive and experimental methodology. In conclusion, this research findings and contributions of the study will be used to improve the role of pedestrian walkways.

Int. J. Architect. Eng. Urban Plan, 28(1): 91-104, 2018

Urban planning has received tremendous public attention in the last few years. Energy cost, environmental issues, traffic congestion and the feeling of lack of belonging in the cities are among the factors that have contributed to the development of pedestrian areas. These public spaces provide opportunities for shopping, entertainment, eating facilities and gatherings where people can experience urban life as pedestrians. Over decades, the concept of pedestrianisation has become part of social urban life in the developed countries. However, developing countries such as Iran have just recently paid attention to pedestrianisation and walking as a mode of transportation. The historic core of Tehran, the capital of Iran, embraces significant tangible and intangible values. For a long time, enhancing the mobility in the area has been the important concern of the urban developers; pedestrianisation is their recently solution to this issue in this site. To study and evaluate this project, a literature and field research have been performed through investigating the valid documentations and using questionnaires and interviews with the locals and visitors. Taking advantage of the Historic Urban Landscape approach, the results of the field and bibliographic research have been evaluated and recommendations have been made for improving the pedestrian-oriented areas in the historic context. The findings of this research show that converting a street to a pedestrian zone does not mean to simply ban the vehicles from entering the site. On the contrary, there are essential bases in the site such as multifunctional places, human-scale dimensions or activities during the whole day and night that should be taken into consideration to provide a suitable space for pedestrians including citizens and tourists. Pedestrian zones include different functions such as residential, social, cultural, tourists, physical, economic, etc. on various dimensions and scales which affect the whole city design and management. Moreover, these spaces should be supported by variety of facilities like parking lots, public transportation and equipment for people with disabilities. Assessing the impacts of pedestrianisation in Tehran Grand Bazaar can pave the way for future studies with the aim of conserving unique features of the historic sites within an urban development process.

Iran University of Science Technology, 2014

There are many evident that people are more interested in walking in attractive urban spaces and inappropriate physical and psychological conditions can reduce their presence in a remarkable amount. The current research investigates the influence of physical design and psychological elements and their criteria on optional physical activity and specifically walking in urban public spaces. However there are some limitations in determining specifications of physical and psychological design which have effects on walking, meanwhile the urban planning elements, transportation and crime prevention via environmental design are developed strategies which have potentials for influencing the rate of pedestrianoriented state of urban spaces. The research frameworks which are extracted from the complex of these elements include 5 functional criteria of safety, aesthetics, destination and (environmental) security which are specified by use of documents and library method. In this paper, the public general spaces of Farahzad village were selected and by help of questioning technique which it's statistical community included 12 urban planning experts, the mentioned criteria were analyzed by Analytic Network Process. The results indicates that the quality of physical design and the psychological elements have major effects on pedestrianoriented state of urban spaces and the importance degree of each factor in determining the rate of pedestrian-oriented state of urban spaces of Farahzad village included the aesthetics, security and functional indicators in a value level, destination and safety. Meanwhile, the most pedestrian-oriented spaces of Farahzad village were specified by considering the mentioned criteria and by the selected method (Analytic Network Process). Cognition of this issue will help the above-mentioned options to overcome their challenges which are creating attractive and dynamic urban space via improving the condition.

2019

The advent of technology has reduced the need of citizens to buy, work and do even social interactions in urban space. This condition has increased the power of individuals to choose between attend or absent from the public space and consequently has highlighted the importance of public space quality. The purpose of the public life study is to focus on the daily life of urban space to identify factors affecting public life and provide a favorable urban environment for the presence of various social strata. In this regard, the 17th Shahrivar project in Tehran was selected, which, despite the planning for pedestrians, has not been able to provide the invited and desired space for citizens. The present research, with an emphasis on the ideas of Jan Gehl, uses Gehl's study tools of public life, including counting, mapping, looking for traces, keeping a diary and test walks in the area. The findings of the research show that the study area has not had a proper public life condition except in the evenings. The main factor was lack of transparent, attractive, dynamic and diverse activities in the axis. For this reason, abandoned spaces have been created with little social monitoring which cause unwanted and unplanned functions, such as becoming a vehicle park or the emergence of social unpredictable activities that is related to the background and potential context of space. By changing the social context of users toward abnormal, alien and specific people, has reduced the quality of the environment, especially in terms of psychological security, and has decreased the presence of normal people, specifically women and children.

Every citizen expects urban space to be a desirable environment with a good quality. On the other hand, enhancing experienced quality of urban spaces is one of the important goals in urban design. Walking is simplest type of transportation between origin & destination. It can also as an complicated activity that not only influence in body, but influence people' mentality. Walking is the most preferable form of developing human interaction with urban environment. Pedestrian paths are the best context for urban life and provide longer presence of people in urban spaces. Constant presence leads to environmental sustainability in these spaces. It is necessary to use sustainability factors for cultural, social, economical and environmental urgency in urban design process. With pedestrian zing, we can not only enhance people' presence in urban spaces, but can warrant their sustainability in the future. In this paper, we studied concepts and definitions related to sustainability and pedestrian streets and also urban spaces requirements. Then, we analyzed related studies to recognize Tarbiyat Street as an old and valuable urban space in Tabriz (a traditional city of Iran) using SWOT Tarbiyat Street is a historical place in down town of Tabriz and has cultural and most valuable building with commercial land use. The growing demand in the Tarbiyat street for building space to be used for services, commerce and apartments, and the conversion of residential units to new purposes, is also related to the construction style of these buildings.In the next stage,we determined pedestrian streets role in sustainability of urban spaces. These roles are socio-cultural, economical, environmental perception and safety enhancement. After identifying the roles, we explained them in separate parts.

19th International Conference on Transportation and Traffic Engineering, 2023

Walking is an effective means of internal transportation for short trips. With the exception of cycling, walking is the only means of human movement by which physical activity is encouraged, local economies are stimulated, and environmental detriments caused by vehicular emissions are lessened. However, walkability is influenced by cityscape including built environments and streetscape. The term walkability is defined by quantifying multiple built environment attributes at the neighbourhood level trying to describe the extent to which an urban environment is pedestrian-friendly. At the same time, walking has generally received little or no attention in the planning, design, and development of Tehran within the past years. The main aim of this paper is to review the walkability of Tehran as the capital of the country and the most populated city of Iran. The study adopts a review of the literature and qualitative approach to evaluate the perceived walkability in Tehran based on the users' experience. This article also analyses the respondent's perceptions of 15 elements of the built environment and streetscape. An Exploratory Factor Analysis was carried out to determine the correlations among various attributes to identify the underlying walkability determinants. The pilot observation revealed pedestrian infrastructure and well-balanced design can improve the level of facilities for walkability while formulating new policies can create a shift from a more vehicle-oriented city towards a proper condition of walkways and streetscape suited for experiencing the city on foot.

Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs, 2018

The study aimed to answer the question of how pedestrianisation can influence walkability to increase physical activity vitality and livability of urban spaces. Therefore, after the theoretical understanding of the framework of the research, the study will focus on experimental research on the Salamis rode of Famagusta to assess the problems of walkability in the street to propose a sustainable and human-friendly solution for this area. The main aim of the research is to find what is the interrelation between pedestrianisation in public urban spaces and walkability? Therefore, it concludes that walkability as a part of the pedestrianisation scheme will lead to an increase in the quality of the urban environment by increasing safety and organization in urban infra-instructors.

2013

It's for decades and perhaps centuries that the world moves toward "urbanization". By 2025,urban population will form 3/2 of the world, and more than 90% of new urban residents will settle in developing countries. In recent decades, Policy making take urban space into consideration as a milestone in urban development program. Place possessing the necessary qualification of urban design appropriated to the hustle and bustle of city life. A vital urban environment increases the underlying social interactions between different individuals creating a social capital .the vitality of city or metropolitan area, is also effective in the development of prosperous economy, however The role of the urban spaces enhancing the culture of the community in its context is in decline in our country from day to day, and the vitality and popularity of the city are ignored.. Among the types of urban spaces, planning and designing of the urban streets demand further delicacy and elegance. So paying serious enough attention on these factors and their impact on a pedestrian movement in urban spaces are essential. Current article, as a primary step, offers a theoretical framework to understand the role of social values and public urban space in the quality (performance) of urban life, which is crucial for a vital street. Then As an example, a survey on a practical Case, BoaliSina St. as one of the main streets of Hamadan on behalf of a large number of people every day, being performed. So, consequently, the analytical model of recognizable affecting factors on vitality of this street has been gathered and these aforementioned factors being determined. The results from this study indicate that factors such as safety, security, diversity of users etc had a great impact on vitality and popularity of this street, and its two variables, namely availability of vehicle and pedestrian-oriented have not been assessed as an ideal.

Transactions on Transport Sciences, 2023

Nowadays, new urban development strategies emphasize on pedestrian construction where pedestrian zones must meet the standard requirements in order to improve citizen mobility. Urban economies, social justice, and sustainable transportation may be impacted by pedestrianization. Certainly, pedestrianization and walkability can significantly reduce traffic congestion in historic and downtown districts. Concerning historical urban attitudes and relevant potentials, this paper proposes reconstructions to build better pedestrian areas in historic places where private car traffic and public transport lanes are also considered in pathway construction. As a case study, a historic area in the Iranian city of Kerman has been studied due to its unique cultural and climatic conditions. Consequently, all guidelines and regulations for changes to potential streets of historical districts into pedestrian zones have been carefully reviewed followed by defining scenarios of walkability and non-walkability (turning historic passageways into new roadways) of streets as well as improving traffic conditions. In addition to investigating variables including costs, traffic enhancement, and urban development priorities, the analysis has been done by performing the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The results indicated that non-walkability-based scenarios (passage and roadway widening) could merely reduce delays while incurring significant expenses and the highest destruction of historic districts. Nevertheless, the analysis carried out using three criteria showed that walkability and the development of public transportation could provide the most reliable solutions (the highest point) to secure sustainable transportation.